


Trust

by shadeblue



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Implied Relationship, M/M, fluff with sadness at the edges, post 3b
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-15
Updated: 2014-05-15
Packaged: 2018-01-24 21:26:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1617617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadeblue/pseuds/shadeblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything between people, it's about trust.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trust

_Everything between people, it’s about trust_.

His mother had told him that.

He very much doubts she knew exactly what those words would mean to him, someday.

Derek moved aimlessly around the loft, piling empty pizza boxes and soda cans in the trash. There wasn’t much mess, the pack always cleaned up after meetings. Especially meetings Lydia attended. It gave him something to do. Soothed away the edges of tension that ran beneath every meeting the last few weeks, fading but inevitable. They had all been on edge, lost too much, for things to slide back to normal that quickly.

And that was just the pack.

This, whatever this new thing was, between him and Scott—

Well, he wasn’t thinking about it too much.

It’s difficult. Without trying, he can hear every movement of Scott’s skin under the water. Shower, sure. That made sense. It had been a long day and they were all worn. If he tried, he could even smell Scott beneath the water and shampoo. If he tried, he could smell Scott anywhere. Feel him anywhere.

It ran in his blood and sat in his bones, defining him. Derek hadn’t realized how much he needed it. It was like the moon above the trees and a cold snap in the air, it put breath in his lungs and purpose in his steps.

The water shut off. Scott didn’t take long, didn’t linger. Derek left off doing his pointless tasks and sat on the edge of the bed. If he watches the floor it’s easier to pretend he’s breathing normally. This was good. His Alpha needed him. _Scott_ needed him.

Funny how far they’d come.

Scott appeared in the doorway between bathroom and the main loft. He smiled very slightly when he saw Derek watching him. It wasn’t much. Not in the way of Scott smiles. That’s alright, though. Scott gives enough smiles. He’s seen Scott smile through blood and darkness, smile past the dark circles under his eyes and the exhaustion resting on his shoulders. Smile past his fallen friends.

Derek didn’t completely understand the loss of Allison. He couldn’t, he knew that. He had never had a first love, not like that. Not with sparks and lightning, not with daring and softness. First love tasted like ash in his mouth. But he could see it, at the angles. In the moments when no one else was looking at Scott and all his defenses dropped, when he looked utterly defeated. He didn’t need to understand the love. He could understand the lost.

And he could stand behind Scott and let him lean on his shoulders.

Scott dressed carelessly. It’s not a werewolf gift. It’s something caught between confidence and exhaustion, lovely to behold but full of holes. He pulls on boxers and a t-shirt. Derek knew he wore the t-shirt for propriety, for some kind of barrier that Scott needed to hold on to. He knew because in the deep night he woke with Scott’s skin pressed against his and it felt like the heat of the moon, perfect and overwhelming.

But they can start with the t-shirt.

He isn’t here to ask questions, to push at the lines. He is here to be Beta.

There’s a moment halfway across the room when Scott paused, like he didn’t know where he was or how he got there. He looked at Derek like a road map. That’s his cue. Derek could walk this room at midnight, walk to Scott at midnight with no moon, and it only took a few steps anyway. The skin of Scott’s wrists was fragile beneath his nails. It’s like all the fragile bits of Scott are there, so he wrapped his big hands around them and pulled Scott to the bed.

They’ve had their own sides of the bed since two weeks after Stiles got back to normal, when Derek woke up to find Scott standing at the edge of the bed looking like his world had shredded around him. In a way, it had. What had happened with the Nogitsune had broken something at the very core of Scott, something he was being careful not to let anyone see. Not even Stiles. Derek knew why. It wasn’t because he blamed his friend or because he didn’t trust him. It was because Scott couldn’t let anyone carry his pain. His, or anyone else’s. He just took everything and added it to his load.

That was why he was Alpha.

And why Derek was Beta.

Derek was the thing Scott didn’t have to carry, the steel in his spine. That night, he’d pulled Scott down before he realized what was happening, holding his Alpha while he shattered at the edges, pulling him back together as the dawn crept across the cold floor of his loft. It had become something of a pattern, Scott appearing in the dark, Derek holding him until the light came back. Until the night they’d had a meeting—quiet, withdrawn, so deeply fragile—and Derek had asked Scott to help clean up. He was glad to see Scott and Stiles speak quietly before Stiles left, glad to see smiles that weren’t  fake, even if they were small. Everyone was healing. Those two would be fine. They were tinder and match, one without the other did not have a place.

They just needed time.

And Derek gave time in his own way, asked Scott to stay if he wanted to stay, watch a movie and stay up. They hadn’t stayed up. Scott had tried to wait him out, but Derek had siblings, and he knew how to be patient beyond sanity. When Scott finally fell asleep on the couch Derek had wrapped him in a blanket and moved him to the bed, keeping him warm, quiet and safe.

Every night since then.

The pattern had evolved, slowly. Scott let himself ask for things. Different movies. More blankets. Derek’s arm underneath his head. Derek’s heartbeat beneath his ear. Derek’s hand on the back of his neck.

Derek gave it all.

Tonight, Scott smiled again, looser this time, and crawled across the bed to his side. Derek left one hand resting gently on the small of his back, not so much guiding as maintaining contact. It’s difficult not to touch Scott when he’s in his bed. He probably shouldn’t let himself as much as he does, but it’s difficult. He’s never had an Alpha like Scott, someone who wasn’t his blood. Contact was important before, between him and his mother and, later, him and Laura, but this felt different. There was a current beneath everything they did, thunder in the distance.

Derek left it in the distance. This was a safe place, no room here for thunder.

Scott laid down in a loose sprawl, caramel on gray sheets. Derek didn’t speak, just reached down and pulled the blankets up over Scott, fingers skimming skin as he went. Scott is always so _warm._ His Alpha made a soft humming sound, something he has come to associate with Scott relaxing. It made Derek feel good to hear it, set sparks at the base of his spine.

The blanket relaxed into the shape of their bodies slowly. It gave slightly where Derek’s arm stretched across Scott’s back, where their ankles overlapped. Derek took a slow breath filled with Scott’s scent. It locked together the broken parts of him. Hopefully it does the same for Scott.

Scott sighed gently, and it didn’t sound broken or like the end of a whimper. Just like contentment and ease. Derek ghosted his hand up the line of Scott’s back, feeling more heat than skin. His thumb settled on the bone at the base of Scott’s neck and moved slowly back and forth, pulling at the hurt. Taking pain can be done in many ways, and Derek thinks they are making progress. A little tension eases out of Scott every time. The following mornings he seems looser, more relaxed.

Derek can do this. He was born to do this.

He is Beta.

And Scott is his Alpha.

Finally.  

 


End file.
